Rehabilitating buildings and their communities

10/10/13
Rehabilitating buildings and their communities - Philly.com
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By Alan J. Heavens, Inquirer Real Estate Writer
POSTED: October 07, 2013
Developer Ken Weinstein has a knack for finding opportunities in
places where others see none.
Upper Darby and Norristown, to name two suburban locations, as well
as city neighborhoods.
In 2009, Philadelphia­based Weinstein and business partner Stan
Smith paid $1.1 million for the 84,000­square­foot former Verizon Corp.
building across from the Upper Darby Township building. They
rehabbed it for offices as 7200 Chestnut.
In Norristown, Weinstein's firm, PhillyOfficeRetail, is completing work
at 317 Swede St., across from the Montgomery County Courthouse,
and commercial space at 401 DeKalb St., in the county seat's
reemerging business district.
His only regret, he says, is that there aren't more opportunities in both
communities. Still, he has plenty to keep him occupied.
In the last 24 years, Weinstein, 49, has amassed a portfolio of more
than 200 properties, from the Trolley Car Diner in Mount Airy to a
former Episcopal church in Germantown, now destined for a school.
Weinstein, a political organizer who grew up in central New Jersey,
began rehabbing rowhouses for rent in 1989.
"I was living in Fishtown, renting a three­bedroom rowhouse for $400 a
month from a woman who bought derelict properties and fixed them
up," Weinstein said. "I looked for a place where this would have a
maximum impact, and picked the Germantown area."
Weinstein's first rehab, on Phil­Ellena Street, established a precedent
he followed on the scores that followed: buying one­ to three­unit
properties; fixing them up for less than $25,000; and renting them for
less than $700.
"My rule was that I would never buy a property I wouldn't live in. My
business plan was 50 percent financial gain and 50 percent community
improvement," he said.
"There are blocks in Germantown that have a couple of abandoned
buildings in them. The goal is to get in there and rehab them before it
gets to be six or seven."
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In 1996, he acquired what was purported to be Mount Airy's oldest
house. Without prior restaurant experience, he opened the Cresheim
Cottage Cafe.
June 16, 1995
"There was always a need for a revitalized commercial area along
Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy," Weinstein said. "Residential was
far ahead of commercial properties in value, but houses on those
streets within a block or two of the avenue had depressed prices."
October 15, 2010
Cresheim Cottage Cafe, which he sold in 2005, was his first
commercial property there. Trolley Car Diner opened in 2000, and he
now owns a dozen or so along the avenue in Mount Airy. Which led
him to create a business­improvement district that he oversees.
"We need more businesspeople like Ken," said Anaj Gupta, executive
director of Mount Airy USA, the community­development corporation.
"He has a social mission and community orientation behind everything
he does as a business operator and real estate developer, and our
neighborhood is better off because of it."
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Weinstein recently purchased the national landmark St. Peter's
Episcopal Church in Germantown for $435,000 and is spending $4
million to renovate it for the Waldorf School.
articles.philly.com/2013-10-07/real_estate/42766252_1_mount-airy-usa-properties-germantown-avenue
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10/10/13
Rehabilitating buildings and their communities - Philly.com
He has 20­year leases with SEPTA for the Allen Lane, Ardsley, and
Fort Washington Stations, splitting renovation costs for the last two
and renting them from the transit agency.
Believing that SEPTA's $25 million investment in revitalizing Wayne
Junction means good things for the nearby neighborhoods, Weinstein
acquired old factories and other vacant properties there.
He acquired at sheriff sale the note for Germantown Settlement
Charter School and its 4.5 acres, and signed a lease to turn the chapel
into a performing­arts center and theater.
"I think Ken Weinstein is a visionary," said Gina Snyder, executive
director of the East Falls Development Corp., who with the Fairmount
Park Historic Preservation Trust, brought him to the neighborhood.
Weinstein and his partner Bob Kaufman turned a 100­year­old pool
house on South Ferry Street, known locally as the Bathey, into the
Trolley Car Cafe.
Said Snyder: "I trust him to make good decisions that benefit everyone and are not just narrowly focused on his own interests."
aheavens@phillynews.com
215­854­2472
@alheavens at Twitter.
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